{"id":454607,"date":"2010-03-21T10:00:57","date_gmt":"2010-03-21T14:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=107229"},"modified":"2010-03-21T10:00:57","modified_gmt":"2010-03-21T14:00:57","slug":"webscale-databases-is-open-source-really-necessary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/454607","title":{"rendered":"Webscale Databases: Is Open Source Really Necessary?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>When it comes to deploying databases \u2014 or any infrastructural pieces, really \u2014 at web scale, many large sites opt to \u201cgo cheap, go custom or go home.\u201d\u00a0Given their unique needs, this credo makes sense, but I wonder if the companies following it aren\u2019t making more work for themselves than is necessary. Might the resources spent developing open-source projects or building tools from scratch not become extraneous if companies could buy solutions that would work just fine?<\/p>\n

Isn’t it plausible that a proprietary vendor \u2013- Oracle, let\u2019s say \u2013- could launch a webscale database or analytics solution that would do the trick for a company like Facebook? If there\u2019s one thing Larry Ellison knows better than relational databases, it\u2019s how to make a buck.\u00a0Hypothetically speaking, Oracle could\u00a0offer database and data-analysis solutions that\u00a0could\u00a0save a company like Facebook from having to act like a software company itself. It certainly hasn’t hesitated to buy its way into alternative markets in the past.<\/p>\n

Another consideration is where web companies draw the line regarding commercial solutions: Is an open-source but subscription-based vendor like Red Hat out of the question? What about any of the emerging startups tackling file systems, memcached and other issues?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not suggesting that Facebook et al are heading down the garden path with their current approaches, or that there’s a glut of proprietary products on the market, only that it\u2019s not inconceivable that commercial vendors could meet the needs of these companies. You can read my full column<\/a> over at GigaOM Pro (subscription required). What do you think? Are open-source and DIY solutions really the best bet for webscale companies?<\/p>\n

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When it comes to deploying databases \u2014 or any infrastructural pieces, really \u2014 at web scale, many large sites opt to \u201cgo cheap, go custom or go home.\u201d\u00a0Given their unique needs, this credo makes sense, but I wonder if the companies following it aren\u2019t making more work for themselves than is necessary. Might the resources […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2663,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2663"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454607\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}